Yesterday we introduced a new experiment on Current.com called Developing Stories. As expected, there has been some confusion around the concept, but we’re working to clear things up as we go, after all it’s an experiment. Ed. Note — If you’ve already read our intro post, please re-read it as it’s been updated with information about pitching stories for consideration as Developing Stories. Thanks!
This morning, we have our first scoop. WakeUpPeople posted a story titled, “Bachmann calls on protestors to use scare tactics against Congress.” This was considered a scoop because it’s a new development in the health care reform bill story, so current89’s story has been removed from featuring on the Current.com homepage, removed from the Current Developing Stories group, and placed in the Developing Stories Archives. Also note, both of these stories have been connected via links in their comments.
It will be interesting to see how this develops going forward. Kudos to both current89 and WakeUpPeople for getting Developing Stories off and running!
Got a scoop? Want to suggest a story for development? Here’s how!
If you want to get your story on our radar for consideration, please tag it with “Current Developing Stories” when you submit to Current.com. PLEASE NOTE: Tagging is not the same as adding to a group. The “Current Developing Stories” is a CLOSED group managed by the editors, so you will not be able to add stories there. Tagging, however, will allow you to be seen by our editors we will monitor that tag for potential stories to develop.
Over on the Current News blog, Andrew posed the titular question in response to news that the White House asked the Tibetans to ‘postpone’ a meeting with the President. My take? I don’t know what you’re complaining about, Andrew. Obama’s decision to postpone his meeting with the Dalai Lama only opens the door for you to spend more time with his Holiness. What are you waiting for? Weigh in on this story here.
In a shocking change of pace, this legalization story is picking up some steam on Current.com, this time from a UK perspective (e.g. the source article comes to us from the BBC). These days California is either seen as a trailblazer (as this article points out, should we adopt a legalization plan to profit off the legal sale of the plant), or a ripe candidate for the title of “America’s first failed state.” Tell us what you think here.
F.D.I.C. Chairman Sheila Bair told the Institute of International Finance:
“I believe that the new regime should apply to all bank holding companies that are more than just shells and their affiliates regardless or not whether they are considered to be systemic risks.”
Bair’s comments are striking a chord with community members who are tired of the “rewarded failure” approach, but we want to hear your thoughts, too. Add to the conversation here.
Okay, I agree with all of the unjustified lawsuit claims on the basis that Woolworths and Apple couldn’t be further from each other. On an unrelated note, whenever I read word “Woolworths” I can’t help but think of John McConnell’s mispronunciation of the store’s name in the Coen Brothers’ O Brother, Where Art Thou?, “And stay outta the Woolsworth!”
But, I have to say, if I were Woolworths I’d have to be loving this lawsuit. I mean, what better way to announce the five-and-dime’s return? Oh wait, this is an unaffiliated Australian supermarket named after the original Woolworths. Nevermind. WTF Apple? Let Apple know how off-base they are over here. jh6wcyrsf5
Medical marijuana has become big business in California and the drug is approved for a range of conditions and for “any other illness for which marijuana provides relief”. In these straitened financial times, booming sales and healthy tax revenues mean that full legalisation of cannabis may be just around the corner.Across California there are an estimated 2,100 dispensaries, co-operatives, wellness clinics and taxi delivery services in the sector known as “cannabusiness”. That is more than all the Starbucks, McDonald’s and 7-Eleven outlets in the state put together.
A citizens-science group is calling for children, adults, families, and educators to help native ladybugs.
During the past two decades as invasive look-alike ladybugs expanded their territories and pollution and habitat loss have crowded them out, species of Native ladybugs began vanishing and the invasive species began increasing. These include the multicolored Asian ladybug, checkerboard ladybug and the seven-spotted ladybug.
“This has happened very quickly and we don’t know how this shift happened, what impact it will have, and how we can prevent more native species from becoming so rare,” said John E. Losey, Cornell University entomologist.
Data can be truly eye-opening. Take a look at this visualization of McDonald’s locations across the United States, and take comfort (?) in knowing that the golden arches are always less than 145 miles away from wherever you are.
This map was created by Stephen Von Worley, who used location data on the 13,000 plus MickeyD’s locations along with some coding-fu to generate the above map. What we see is as expected, a network of the franchises largely following the freeway and highway system and increasing in density in proportion to the population density.
The Center for Community Change and the Reform Immigration FOR America
Campaign organized state-wide youth trainings in Colorado and Florida. This video takes an inside look at what happens at these trainings, it talks about what Comprehensive Immigration Reform is, and shows how the youth is organizing their communities to fight for C.I.R.
Personally, I’m a big fan of creative demonstrations. This sneak attack at an Oakland Whole Foods falls right into that category — complete with choreographed dancing and a backing band.
In case you’re not keeping up like some of us are, Whole Foods’ CEO, John Mackey, recently penned an op-ed in the WSJ in which he opined that, because he is able to provide private health insurance benefits for his (mostly young and w/o pre-existing conditions, like arthritis or CAD or osteoporosis) workforce, he is opposed to health-care reform that would make health-care a “right” in America.
He even (surprisingly) went so far as to call it “ObamaCare,” right in line with the nut-jobs who don’t want our government to mess with their MediCare.
It’s Wednesday, and on the west coast it’s the lunch hour. So if you’re looking for something to read, discuss, or share, I humbly offer a list of the top 5 stories the Current.com community is reading and discussing:
And certainly, at the moment, religious groups are far from standing united against the healthcare plans. Many more liberal Christians – and indeed Muslim and Jewish leaders – are also rallying to support the administration’s proposals. They are doing so on religious grounds themselves: that there is an ethical obligation to look after the weak and the sick. They are calling on their supporters to oppose the rightwing shock-jocks and commentators spreading untruths about the proposals and they have sponsored a television advertisement urging reform. The Rev John Hay of Indianapolis, featured on the advert, said current health provision “is no way for the most blessed country in the world to treat its most vulnerable citizens. This is as much a crisis of faith as it is a crisis of healthcare.”
We’ve had a week of sex scandals in schools. Now Terence Kealey, vice-chancellor of Buckingham University in the UK, seems intent on stirring things up on the academic front.
“Female students,” he declares,”are a perk of the job for male university lecturers – though they should look, not touch.”
With quotes like these, no wonder it’s stirring things up.
[ed. note: the misspellings below are copied verbatim from the source article on GlobalPost]
Venezuelan state TV today broadcast an exceprt from “Family Guy” as an example of how the U.S. promotes drug use. The clip features Stewie, the matricide-obsessed infant son of Peter and Lewis Griffin, singing a song extolling the virtues of smoking weed.
“We can observe how [the U.S. government] promotes and incites the population to consume that drug there,” said Tarek El Aissaimi, Venezuela’s Interior Minister. “There’s no subliminal message. It’s an animated cartoon where you can observe perfectly how they promote consumption and moreover they foster the legalization of marijuana.”
The heightened standard is designed in part to restore the confidence of Congress, civil liberties advocates and judges, who have criticized both the Bush White House and the Obama administration for excessive secrecy. The new policy will take effect Oct. 1 and has been endorsed by federal intelligence agencies, Justice Department sources said.
“What we’re trying to do is . . . improve public confidence that this privilege is invoked very rarely and only when it’s well supported,” said a senior department official involved in the review, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the policy had not yet been unveiled. “By holding ourselves to this higher standard, we’re in some way sending a message to the courts. We’re not following a ‘just trust us’ approach.”
